>From: GBurch1@aol.com
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.com
>To: extropians@extropy.com
>Subject: SOC: Radical Anti-Genengineering
>Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 17:52:00 EDT
>
>[[ Forwarded from an email forum frequented by the very (and I mean VERY)
>radical greens ]]
>
[stuff snipped]
(Though this may be a little off-topic from what your post was about)
I think it's very important to be familiar with the green party's platform.
I looked at it a few days ago, it's at http://www.greenparty.org. I was
really stuck at how scary it was. I knew it would be pretty bad, but I could
not believe the aggresive backwardsness of it. It's not just their positions
on genetic engineering - that is actually fairly tame compared to the rest
of what they endorse. Anyone considering voting for Nader as a protest vote,
PLEASE familiarize yourself with their platform. I do not doubt that if
enacted, the mass starvation, death, and curtailing of freedoms that would
result would put Mao and Hitler to shame.
Their economic plan consists, among other things, of setting a maximum wage,
at 10x the minimum wage. They state 20,000$ as a minimum guaranteed yearly
income, so this means the most anyone could ever earn would be
$200,000/year. By simply taxing everything you make over the maximum wage at
a 100% tax rate (what a euphamism), they expect to pay the guaranteed
20,000$ minimum income for everyone, as well as fund a host of other social
programs. They state figures of wealth made by billionaires to show how much
money this would result in, by taxing these billionaires at 100%. The
logical flaw in this plan is so rage-inducingly obvious that I'm not going
to mention it. They have the gall to state, in the same section,
"State-bureaucratic command economies like those which once dominated
Eastern Europe are no alternative to capitalism."
Another economic goal is "to eliminate harassment, unequal opportunity for
advancement, and pay differentials based on sex, age, race, ethnicity,
sexual orientation, religion, and physical or MENTAL ABILITIES" (caps mine).
Whether the government can try to combate racism, sexism, and homophobia
through bans of discrimination is something I disagree with, but I waffle on
it sometimes, thinking that maybe a little coercion is preventing a lot of
bad, but mental ability? How can you want anything except to maximize
discrimination based on mental ability?
This particular point on "direct action" (another great euphamism) is not
veiled very well: "We neither condemn nor publicly advocate monkeywrenching
(a term for direct action in support of the Earth taken from the title of an
Edward Abbey novel), believing that such forms of resistance and creative
sabotage should be left to individuals and their own consciences." [There's
no polite or legal way to phrase what I want to say about this advice, so
I'm leaving it out].
Their educational platform (read it) is of the type which is already being
slowly integrated into public schools, which results in a disdain for
superior ability, exclusion of the most intelligent, and ultimately school
shootings (I have a feeling this may spinoff into a seperate topic - don't
forget the "GUNS:" tag). The center of their curriculum would be study of
the local environment.
This is very scary and sad. I do not think that the green party will ever
win the presidency, but I understand they hold many local offices, and I
don't think that a few seats in the house is unbelievable for the future.
Nader could get maybe 5% of the vote this year, and if things ever got
really bad in the years to come, maybe they could take second place, but
before that happened, the republican and democratic parties would see the
threat and adopt many of their ideas into their own platforms, and this is
the real danger. I would hope that at this point, they would merge into one
party. At least they're *somewhat practical*.
The green party platform (if you don't want to navigate their site) can be
found directly here:
http://www.greenparty.org/program.html
At the same time, the Libertarian Party becomes a sadder and sadder
spectacle each day. Their press releases (you have to go to their page for
them, www.lp.org, because they get no press coverage) become more and more
dorky - I think whoever is writing them got his start in radio commercials.
Harry Browne's presidential campaign was suspended for about a month from
lack of funds, and the fact that he showed up in two national polls (at 0.8%
nationally and 2% in Oregon) led his campaign manager to announce "It's been
a wild few weeks, but the Harry Browne campaign is stronger than ever."
Showing up in these polls at all represented "a breakthrough for the
campaign." The polls were conducted by Zogby International and The Portland
Oregonian.
---------------------------------------------------
Zeb Haradon (zebharadon@hotmail.com)
My personal webpage:
http://www.inconnect.com/~zharadon/ubunix
A movie I'm directing:
http://www.elevatormovie.com
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